


Maybe

by Jirubee (stardustcatharsis)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, First Time, Loneliness, Mistakes, Nostalgia, Post-Canon, Romance, Teen Romance, Tragedy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 09:38:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustcatharsis/pseuds/Jirubee
Summary: Kagome is lost without the life she knew. Her marriage is rocky at best as she visits the shrine to connect with her past.She spends the night at her mother's longing for the life she once had, reminiscing about her first time of many with Inuyasha and her love of him.





	Maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! It's been a hot minute since I wrote an Inuyasha fic. This is set six years after the well seals, with an alternate timeline because I have never been able to accept the series was only six months. My head has always been three years. 
> 
> Please enjoy this angsty, feels train with some inserted smut. 
> 
> Happy reading guys! My summaries suck.

 

Kagome's resolve crumbled like the old well house as she pressed her palms against its wide mouth. She couldn't recall how many days it had been since she left Sengoku Jidai. Sometimes, on evenings like this one, the miko found herself burdened by the memories. She wondered if she had ever been there at all. It was hard enough to sit and wonder if her loved ones were alive, but she knew better. They couldn't have been. Five hundred years either kills you or pushes you out of existence because people stop believing in you.

The woman scoffed at this. The one thing about getting older was the getting wise part. But, it didn't change the spark of hope that shot through her every time she looked down the mouth of the well. It could swallow her up at any second, right? It hadn't in years despite how much she wanted it to.

Kagome may have aged beyond the youthful girl that leaped through the warmth of time and space, lit with the heat of a star trembling as she reappeared whole, but she still felt like she was fifteen years old when she was home. A lingering want besieged her as she ran her fingers along the warped lip. This could be it. It won't be, but it could.

There was no gangly teenage girl. No magic tethering her to the world beyond her own. She was merely a normal woman now. The kind of normal that felt misplaced and boring, staring at a husband she didn't love. Well, she  _did._ He was charming and light-years away from the rude, crass, idiotic hanyou.

Sen had hoped taking her to Kyoto would suffice and bring her happiness. It didn't. Every holiday, every weekend, Kagome would find urgency in visiting her mother at the old shrine house. The sloped stones paved into the hill seemed hurt by her absence. It wasn't as clean now that Jii-chan had passed, nor did it feel right without his knockoff sutras hanging from every doorway.

Sota seemed too interested in girls, school, and his budding career as a developer to pay attention to the grounds. The girl fought the moisture clinging to her lashes, daring them not to fall.

If only she could see Inuyasha one more time. It would take her back to a time where she was happier, spry, hopeful. She sighed at this, as she dangled her bare feet over the edge. "If you believe hard enough, right?"

A pained laugh rippled through her. The audacity of the thought made way for a smile to crack along her lips. Inuyasha would have thought her a fool.

The darkness in the well seemed endless, though from experience, it wasn't. It hurt like hell falling into the dirt. She broke her ankle trying before, and Sen had scolded her for the lie she told.  _She had tripped while cleaning!_

The man found her insane. If she hadn't gotten injured as much as she had, it may have been believable. There was no way a woman could have been  _that_ careless.

Kagome hummed to herself for a while as the sun began to set. The light gleaned through a crack in the door, illuminating the corner of the small space. Her eyes followed the trail to a box wrapped in red twine. It was absolutely slapped full of sutras, most of which had been her grandfather's.

She eased back, slowly creeping towards it. She hadn't seen this one. The gods only knew how long it had been there. It was stuffed away for so long that the wood began eroding and spotting from mildew.

"Boy, that definitely smells ripe." She muttered. Carefully, the girl peeled the sutras off one by one, admiring Jii-chan's poor handwriting. It wasn't long before she untied the string.

Part of her believed that it was something special, something magic to enrich her imagination as it churned images of the man she loved. The man five centuries in the past. The one who showed her the truth in herself. The one that saved her while she helped save their world.

Kagome held her breath as she slid the top to the side. Her heart climbed in her throat as she found a scroll wrapped around the broken hilt of a sword. A sword she knew. A sword she held. A sword that protected her through the swathes of demons crawling in the night.

Everything around her ceased to exist. Her fingers quivered as she placed them upon the lacquer, reading it like it was a forgotten story. "Inuyasha."

She clutched it tight to her breast, finally allowing her tears to spill like rivers across her cheeks. The fang was cracked beyond repair, and she wondered how long Old Totosai has tried to mend it, or if the hanyou had even tried.

Without Naraku, without the Shikon no Tama, he may have put it to rest. It was as it should have been, at the very least. The  _former_ miko unfurled the scroll, noting a particularly juvenile style of writing. It was followed by drawings, flecks of ink, and crude stains on the edge of the parchment. They showed the faces of her loved ones, their names, their stories. It broke her heart into more pieces that the Shikon no Kakera she spent years tracking down. The ache was unbearable.

The girl never forgot Sango-chan's dark eyes beamed at her as she fought her feelings for Miroku-sama, or the way she wrinkled her nose at the chill after a bath. She wanted to be in the hot springs again. Even if they just complained about boys, they were both adolescent despite their status and tribulations. The Taijiya was her best friend, perhaps her soul mate. There wasn't anything she could do to change the fact that she had never grown close to another woman the way she had Sango-chan.

Kagome sucked in a strained breath as she heard her husband call her name. She stuffed the box back into the corner where she could find it and left, drying her eyes. Loving Inuyasha was a lesson she learned over two lifetimes. Her soul knew his. It didn't know Sen's despite trying.

As she cleaned her splotchy face, she rounded the back of the house, trying her best not to look at the Goshinboku. She couldn't remember the last time she had. It still bore the scar where she revived him from his sleep. That little girl didn't know what he would mean to her.

Sen clamored loudly, "Oi! Kagome, where have you been?" He gently gripped her wrist inspecting the dust on her pale yellow yukata and frowned. "I can't take you anywhere. You look like you rolled around in dust."

She looked away, "I was cleaning the well house. It was filthy. Mama doesn't have the strength to do it now."

"Koibito, it isn't like there are visitors anymore. Eventually, this place will be sold and you won't have to worry about it. Just please enjoy our visits for what they are - _visits._ " He said softly, patting away the tufts of dust.

Kagome smiled weakly and cursed him in silence. This house would never belong to anyone but this family. Whether or not she agreed with his sentiments, it was going to end with him sorely underestimating her love of the shrine. It was the last thing she had to remember  _him_ by.

"I'm staying here tonight." She decided, her voice firm.

"Excuse me? We have to make the train otherwise-" Sen furrowed his thick brows and gripped to her shoulders. She hated how his face looked so pitiful. "Otherwise I will miss my morning shift at the firm, and you need to be at the market before dawn."

The girl inhaled sharply, "I am staying here. You can go home. I need to be with Mama tonight."

"Kagome, you've been acting more and more strange the more we visit. What is it that you're not telling me? You keep hiding from me. You've grown so distant." His voice cut deep, "I'm beginning to think that you don't care for me the way I care for you."

She bristled at this. It was unfair to him to keep him at the end of a string. But there was no hope for Inuyasha to crawl into her arms. It was a selfishness she knew would envelope her and made her rotten and sour from want. Chasing childhood loves was pointless by most rights. Here stood a well to do man, a handsome man, a caring man, that adored her for who and what she was. He wasn't make believe, or centuries away in some far off mythical land.

He was standing right in front of her. For the past six years, Sen had been her partner in crime. Despite this, he didn't know who she truly was. A frown at her face as silence seemed to permeate around them. He wasn't wrong, and maybe that's what hurt the most.

"Are you going to say anything, Kagome?" He asked, letting go of her shoulders.

How selfish she was.

"I suppose I have nothing to say." She sighed, running her hands through her dark hair. She kept it long as she always had.

"Very well, then." Sen braced himself. "I'll give you time to yourself. Think about this. I will too."

"I do love you." She said.

"I know you do, Kagome." He replied in a whisper. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and left her standing in the middle of the shrine grounds. The cobblestone lit up by the flood light that kicked on at dusk. The fireflies flickered near the dwindling tree line and she finally breathed.

She settled down inside of the house, waiting for her mother to go to sleep. Ume thought that she was being delusional, or cruel to Sen. The woman knew what it was like to lose the love of your life. She never moved on. Never remarried. Never saw anyone else. It Kagome wondered if she would end up alone, too. Though, the woman always steeled herself and loved her father.

She had wanted different for Kagome.

Yet, here she was stuck in a failing marriage, longing for the one thing she knew she could never have. It would have been easier if Inuyasha had just gone to Hell with Kikyo. Teenage Kagome would have never allowed it, but it sure as hell would have hurt a lot less now if he had. He could have cut the cord then and left her high and dry.

She ate a popsicle angrily at the thought. She wasn't jealous of the woman who had him before, just jealous she savored time with him. Without Kikyo, she would have never known him; Never existed in the first place. It was all maddening. Even as Ume fell asleep on the sofa watching her late night programs, tucked in a loose blanket, Kagome couldn't help but feel like a kid up to no good. She raided the fridge, watched the rest of the Hiten Glamour Hour and lazed about her old room.

There were photos she took with an old Polaroid of her friends sitting tight in a booth, scarfing down fries. She wondered if they had the careers they wanted and looked how young they all were. Fifteen going on thirty, or something in between. She shifted through a few more pictures of parties and birthdays before she found a handful of Sango dressed in modern clothes, Miroku-sama plucking at a shamisen, Shippo-chan eagerly holding his birthday candy, and one of a hanyou perched on the fence outside of Kaede-bachan's.

Kagome ran her finger over the glossy photo. He looked at ease then. It was one of the few times she could remember him being so pensive. His long hair hung like the moon about his face. Those golden eyes bore holes through her. They were the same eyes that peered into her own many nights ago.

How spoiled she was.

He kissed her beneath the Goshinboku, along the starlit paths in between Edo and the rice fields, held her close on cold nights. She pressed her fingers to her lips. Nothing made her feel like he did then. She was split into more pieces than the Shikon no Kakera.

Kagome crawled into her old bed. It seemed much too small now. She sipped on her mother's stash of sake, softening the edge of whatever she thought she was feeling. There were too many emotions bedraggling her to pin one down. And yet, there was a comfort in her own mind, her own thoughts. She relished the simplicity of her room. It hadn't been changed in years. She was almost positive her old uniform still hung in the closet, and her old books still filled the shelves.

She propped to see the claw marks on her window sill and sighed quietly.

"I wish you knew how much I missed you." She said to the air, to the gods, to the ghosts in her head. Anyone that would listen could hear it. It was so silent that she could hear the humming cicadas and daydreamed about the night Inuyasha first loved her.

It was an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. He chased her down after an argument, as he always did. She was too far out of his sight, out of his range. She was eighteen then. She had finished her classes and had no excuse to run home. There hadn't been a sighting or sensation of a shard in weeks, and she was tired. So very tired.

The youkai had all but vanished in anticipation of something more nefarious, more horrendous than they could have imagined. Yet, he sniffed her out and plucked her scent out from the floral bouquets of spring that night. The girl shot arrows into a tree, hoping that her target would split in half. It was a small little thing. The heat was thick and drowned her in its weight. All she had wanted was a moment to blow of steam.

But when he came to her, she yelled at him. His amber eyes alive with ire and his clawed hands flexed angrily. He would never hurt her with him. She wasn't afraid of him despite all of the times he could have, or had lost himself.

A blush settled on his cheeks as he stepped closer to her, towering over her slight frame. She was mad, ready to subjugate him when he snatched her wrist and pulled her close. The sweet smell of his skin set her on fire. His haori hung about his waist in an attempt too cool down.

"I told you not to run off, Kagome." He grated. His voice hardened by a rasp. He looked so seriously she wanted to laugh.

"I'm a grown woman! You don't own me, Inuyasha." Kagome hissed, pushing herself away. The only sound disrupting them were the cicadas singing a symphony. An annoying, loud, crummy symphony of irritation.

"Keh." The hanyou scoffed, turning away with his arms crossed in defiance. "Suit yourself. When the youkai come don't think I'm going to come running."

"You will." She tested, narrowing her eyes on him. "You can't stand when I'm away from you."

Inuyasha grunted, "You've been in such a bad mood that it's making everyone uncomfortable! Ask Sango!"

"Hah! She said you were the one making an ass of yourself! You can't get mad at me whenever Koga-kun comes around! He's married now! You freaking jerk." The miko hollered, poking his chest with her finger.

"I still don't like it. I never have and never will." He growled. It was a sound she never admitted to liking, though he knew she did. He could smell her scent changing and sometimes she hated it.

"Well, I don't like when you chase after Kikyo, but you do it anyway." The girl barked, baring her teeth in her own snarl. She stepped closer, staring intently at his flustered face.

His hair hung about him like silk. She hated it. She hated his stupid twitching ears. This stupid argument. Those stupid fangs and that stupid growl that sounded like a purr.

She heaved a breath, "If you're done bothering me, I'm going to get back to practicing so I don't need you."

Inuyasha leaned down slightly. It was enough to feel his breath upon her face. She wouldn't back down. She always tested his patience. She wasn't weak and refused to bend.

"I'll say  _it."_ She threatened with a wavering voice. He looked at her like she was prey. It made her knees weak and her heart clatter wildly in her chest. She wanted to run, but he would catch her. She hated being so vulnerable.

"Do it and I'll take you down with me." Inuyasha said. He reached down, never taking his eyes off of her and tossed Tessaiga to the ground.

Kagome dropped her bow. "You wouldn't."

He smirked. She hated when he did. Those stupid little fangs peaked out of his stupid mouth and made him look even more stupid.

"Yeah, just like you wouldn't stop needing me." He quipped. Part of him enjoyed the look of fear that passed behind her eyes and the fluctuation of her scent caused him to become tense.

"I... I" Kagoms stammered, feeling his clawed fingers gently grip her chin. He looked down into those large, expressive eyes and pressed his mouth against hers.

She came undone.

It was chaste. Gentle. It was a shock more than anything. When he leaned back, looking full of himself. Kagome felt her body reddening even under the blanket of the night.

She hated him.

There was a stagnant silence that rang between them as she swallowed. She could feel the tension rising until they collided.

They delved deeper, her fingers pressed into his cheeks. Young love and raw want pierced through her as she allowed her hands to search the hills and valleys of his face. They combed violently through the river of hair that hung about his waist.

Eagerly, he picked her up, cradling her against his waist. She smelled intoxicating, far more indulgent than he should have been. His tongue was sweet, his saliva hot mixed with her own.

He laid her down on the grass, far cooler than the skin that touched it. A clawed hand cupped her breast as her dress exposed the pert nipples that soon knew the feeling of his mouth.

Kagome cried into the clearing, aching for him.

The girl reached between them frantically freeing him from his hakama. He hiked up her skirt, jerking down her panties. Inuyasha inhaled her sweetness before wincing at his own arousal.

The girl screwed her eyes shut, too afraid to look at the length that pressed against her virgin entrance. She was stupid. She was scared. She needed this release. She needed to know and to feel the love her could give her.

There was no one else she wanted to love her.

He leaned down, muttering her name into her ear as she kissed his jaw. She could have screamed when he entered her. He was a great hanyou, but crumbled at the feeling of being inside her.

His thrusts were slow, like a drumbeat until he could no longer bear it. His teeth nipped at the tender flesh of her collar. Her hands clung to his shoulders. Her body overloaded by the sensations winding her very center like a clock.

He burst inside of her, warming her insides. Kagome cried as her vision blurred. It was all so quick, so heated, so resolute.

When he collapsed upon her, she cradled him for what felt like hours. Neither of them spoke. He merely kissed her cheek and rested for the first time in months. He held her hand, stroked her hair, never spoke of it again.

Kagome loved him several times after that, but it would have never been enough. Making love to Sen wasn't half as exciting. She needed to stop comparing the two. They were two different people, loving her at two different times in her life.

The woman blanched at the idea of teenage love. She turned on her side, staring at the empty desk as though she could still see herself there. The empty bottle of sake lived there now.

In her stupor, the woman rubbed her eyes and felt sleep trying to ensnare her. All she wanted was to be tucked beneath him, safe and sound. A pillow would have to do. She could be sleeping next to her husband, but the guilt and shame of it was too immense.

"I'm sorry, Inuyasha." She began to weep. "I'm so sorry." A hiccup ruptured in her throat as she soon fell asleep. Her arms held the frilly pillow close.

Maybe she would dream of him and he would take her back to the world she loved. Maybe she would run wild in the sunny skies, holding hands with her best friend. Maybe the gods would be kind.

Maybe tomorrow they would feel pity on her.

Maybe the well would open.

Maybe she wouldn't hurt.

Maybe.


End file.
